Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Hands down the best beginner guitar in the market is the Epiphone Les Paul Standard. This is built to the same specs as the Gibson Les Paul as Epiphone is a subsidiary of Gibson. You get the same fat les paul tone for a fraction of the price. You won't get frustrated playing it either as you would on some cheap guitar models. Check it out.

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Many newbies are fascinated by the way lead guitarists areblazing through a solo and keep wondering how they can do that.They just can't understand how these people figure out whichnotes can would sound right before playing them. The followingarticle is aimed to show some perspective on how to learn leadguitar and begin to make up your own guitar solos.

The Blues Scale

What many beginner guitarists who want to learn lead guitar donot know that improvising doesn't mean just playing random notesand hoping they will sound great together. Before you can learnlead guitar, you should know that professional guitar playersusually draw their solos from a scale, which they are using as atemplate for improvisation. The blues scale, despite the name,is actually a scale used very often in all guitar solo styles.

How to Use It?

Try practicing this scale forwards and backwards, while usingalternate picking and make sure you play each note evenly andcleanly. After you got this right, try to play each note twotimes before you get to the next one. Make up different ways toplay the blues scale to challenge your playing skills. Play theblues scale so that the root begins on the letter name of thescale you are trying to play. For example, if you want to play aC blues scale, you've got to find the note C on the fretboardand start the scale from that note.

Improvising

Once you've become familiar with the blues scale, you might wantto take up some theory lessons and learn more on the differentpositions of pentatonic and blues scales. However, you can getto play a lot of great stuff just by using the single positionexplained above, so start practicing on making up your own solosbefore you memorize tons of scale positions.

Once you've managed to learn lead guitar basics, you can startimprovising. The concept is fairly simple: all you have to do isstring together some licks from the blues scale that sound goodtogether. However, when you try to do it, you'll realize it'sactually more difficult than it sounds. You might want to getsome soloing lessons for beginner guitarists that want to learnlead guitar. Accesrock.com provides some good lessons.

After you did some practicing, you should visit the Home for allGuitar Lovers website that shows several guitar licks. You cantry to memorize some of these and use them in your own solos.Don't get frustrated if you play rather badly at first; if youlike what you're doing, it will get better over time.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

This is one of those sticky adjustments on your guitar that is a pain to get just right. Check this out:

An Alternative Way To Adjust Your Guitar Nut

By: Andrew Preston

Most new guitars arrive from the factory with the nut justbarely playable. Older guitars may have the nut filed or worndown so much that fret buzz cannot be eliminated by neck orstring height adjustment. If you have a new guitar, or you arereplacing the nut with a new one, here is an alternative methodto file and adjust the nut material to make your guitar playlike the professionals guitars play.

Before adjusting anything, make sure your guitar is strung upcorrectly and that your neck is straight and not bowed orwarped. If your neck is bowed you first need to adjust the trussrod. If your neck is warped it will require a more extensiverepair. For the lowest possible action or to avoid fret buzz allacross your finger board it may be necessary to have your fretsleveled and crowned first.

You will need a set of nut files (available from StewartMacDonald), and a good set of feeler gauges as well. Differentgrades of sandpaper are very useful too.

Fret each string individually, starting with the High E, betweenthe second and third fret, use your feeler gauge to check theamount of space between the bottom of the string and the firstfret. You should have approximately .005" of space between eachone, with the string barely touching the second fret. If thismeasurement is close or dead on then move on to the next stringright up to the Low E string. You may want to record the gap ona scrap piece of paper as you move across the fret board, to seethe nut slot's height in relation to the fret board as you do so.

For most players a string height (also known in guitar slang as"action") of 3/64" of an inch is considered normal. Some playerschoose a higher sting height such as 4/64" of an inch whileplayers which tend to have a light touch and want the fastestaction possible strive to lower the action as close as possibleto 2/64" which in many case's is very hard to setup and maintainwithout fret buzzing somewhere on the finger board.

Of course, you can use the traditional method to set your stringheight in relation to the nut, by using multiple feeler gaugesbelow the nut, and filing down to the factory depth and width.However, I have found this method to provide a better and moreconsistent feel while playing near the nut.

About the author:Andrew Preston is a professional guitar session player anddabbles in part time guitar repair. Your can see moreinformation at GuitarSavant

Thursday, June 01, 2006

There's some good advice for beginners in today's guest article. Everybody learns a little different so find a way that's most comfortable for you.

By: Masni Rizal Mansor

With the increasing popularity of rock music during the last fewdecades, playing the guitar has become very appealing for manypeople. While there are many teenagers out there who dream ofbecoming rock superstars, there are also many people that wantto learn how to play the guitar just for the sake of it.However, many of them don't find the best way to learn guitarand after a few unsuccessful attempts, they finally give up.

Different people have different learning needs. In addition, wealso have different resources, different jobs, different errandsto run and different schedules. If you're not at the level youwant, maybe it's because you haven't found the best way to learnguitar yet. There are several ways to learn how to play theguitar. Listed below are only a few of them.

Theory Books

There are thousands of theory books on the market that teach youhow to play the guitar. Some of them are even very good and canprovide you with all the information you need. Books are aninexpensive and comfortable strategy to learn how to play theguitar. Unfortunately, experience shows that for many of us theyjust don't work. However, if you are a very patient person, atheory book might be the best way to learn guitar.

Video Lessons

Video guitar lessons are available on DVDs and video tapes inalmost any music store, as well as on virtual shops. Inaddition, there are also some video lessons available online.Some of them are even free. Video lessons are more dynamic andhave a better chance of keeping you focused. They have theadvantage of allowing you to practice at home whenever you findthe time to do it. However, the inconvenience is that you can'tbenefit from the personalized attention and useful feedback ateacher could provide.

Private Lessons

If you are willing to dedicate a lot of time as well as somemoney to this, private lessons are definitely the best way tolearn guitar. A good teacher can design a customized teachingprogram to suit your learning style and provide you withindividualized attention and positive feedback to get youmotivated. In addition, he/she can also spot and correct yourmistakes very fast.

Learning by Ear

Learning the guitar by ear can be very fun, especially if youhave some sort of musical bone in your body, and that bone ishumming with lots of vibration, you might find that this is thebest way to learn guitar for you. With the modern slowing downtechnology, it is much easier now than it used to be for ourparents' generation.

You should always keep in mind that playing the guitar should befun. If you find it difficult or stressing, your learningstrategy might have a lot to do with it. Sometimes you need totry several learning methods before finding the one that worksbest for you. However, if you really want to play the guitarlike a pro and have enough time and money, taking up privatelessons is probably the best way to go.